Greetings from the chair

This is my first message as your new chair. I'm excited to be here and meet as many of you as I can!

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A View from the Chair

Hi hi! I'm finally here!!

For those I did not meet during the interview process, here is a little bit about me: I'm a small-town Texas kid who grew up wanting to do rural medicine and moved to LA in my early 20s for IM residency to live outside of Texas before settling down in the South for that rural medicine job.

I actually almost went to UW for its amazing residency program and commitment to primary care/rural medicine but ultimately opted to go to LA to live near my favorite aunt. I was (quite literally) tricked into a pulmonary/critical care fellowship and also fell in love with every aspect of the academic mission at UCLA.

Over the last 18 years, I had the privilege of participating in so many wonderful and fulfilling experiences:

As a busy ICU clinician and pulmonologist
As a surgical ICU director working with liver transplant surgeons and patients
As a medical educator and fellowship program director of a large pulmonary/critical care program
As a clinical chief who got to build a large and wonderful division of pulmonary/critical care/sleep medicine/allergy and immunology
As a funded clinical researcher in rare lung disease
And most recently as the Senior Executive Clinical Vice Chair for the UCLA Department of Medicine

I loved my time at UCLA, and everyone in my personal and professional life assumed I would never leave. But all of you and the mission and values here at UW (as well as the perks of being near family) is why I ultimately chose to join this team. Returning to my rural medicine childhood aspirations was definitely a huge part of that, and I was ecstatic to hear about the huge gift UW got this past week to improve rural healthcare!

Since I signed onto this role almost 6 months ago, I've really been looking forward to getting started! Fortunately, in large part because of Trish Kritek's incredible communication and collaborative spirit, I've been able to hit the ground running and be a part of many important initiatives even before my official arrival. This includes kicking off new division head searches for both Cardiology and Allergy and Infectious Diseases, amongst a multitude of other projects.

Office space with flowers and a "Welcome to UW" hanging banner on wall On my first day, I arrived to a beautifully decorated office and a light schedule. Huge thanks to Czarina, Alyssa, and Jackie for both of these!!

It was also amazingly sunny outside, which made the hours long computer training and onboarding much more tolerable.

I've started to delve into DOM’s incredible accomplishments and operational opportunities and have met quite a few leaders already and look forward to meeting many more of you in the upcoming weeks and months.

In my first week in Seattle, I've also made a few interesting observations that are worth noting:

What Seattle freeze?

People here are so friendly! Our neighbors have picked up packages, offered their trucks for moving, baked us cookies, and brought us flowers. So many of you have also stopped by to say hi and welcome me.

People really like dogs

This is wonderful because our street mutt part-husky dog who still acts like a puppy, gets described by the random stranger here in way more complimentary terms than we often heard in LA.

Dog with a stick in a yard — My immature husky-mix, Laika, hanging out this past weekend in my sister-in-law's backyard. I think sticks in Seattle might taste better!

Family support

We have an immense amount of family support here that I did not even quite realize until I got here. Even though our house is still a bunch of boxes, we hosted my father in law's 75th and my niece's 14th birthday party this past weekend. Everyone enjoyed playing basketball in our backyard.

Backyard basketball court with people standing around in birthday hats — Yes, that is indeed a Seattle Supersonics basketball turf in our backyard! Will keep in hopes they return, and in the meantime, go Storm!

Thanks for reading my first message and for all the warm welcomes. In the upcoming months, I’m looking forward to learning more about what you value most about being part of UW, as well as your ideas for making our community even stronger. I’m also going to work hard to try and identify some concrete things that will improve either the patient or the provider experience.

My one thought this week after spending quite a bit of time learning about the UW and UWP benefits is to host a benefits-focused session for DOM faculty around the time of open enrollment this fall.

As I have said to my trainees for years, you should pay attention to benefits as much as you pay attention to your compensation because benefits are essentially a part of your compensation.

We tend to not think about optimizing retirement contributions until we get closer to retirement. I’m pleased to share that our benefits team has already agreed to join us for a presentation and Q&A. I hope it will be a useful opportunity for all of us to learn more about the resources available to us. Stay tuned for details!

Until next time,
Tisha

Jade husky dog P.S. I don't like to admit that I'm a little bit superstitious about some things (as an evidence-based physician!), but I've had a piece of jade around my neck since I was a kid and have always associated it with safety and luck.

When you see me, you will find me with jade around my neck every day. I also received the coolest jade husky gift (pictured here), which will sit on my desk to give me superpowers and positive vibes to help me settle into this wonderful new place!